♥Psychological Investigations| Experiments| Key Terms♥

Hi all,

In the psychological investigation topic of Experiments there are a few Key Terms that are important for your understanding of the topic; so i will discuss them here and give you examples of what you could write for questions on these questions.

Types of Experiments

Lab Experiments- these usually take place in a highly controlled environment such as a Laboratory clearly stated by the name. Such experiments provide the researcher with high levels of control over variables however such studies do not have high ecological validity. Usually such questions are asked about the strengths and weaknesses of lab experiments ( there is a blog post on this here so you would state a weakness and a strengths and give examples for each.)

Field Experiments - These take place in the natural environment of participants however the experimenter still has some control over variables. such experiments allow to see participants natural behaviour to a certain extent however these don't give the experimenter the levels of control that are available with the lab experiments . Once again if a question is asked on Field experiments i have written a blog post here explaining all the pro's and cons of it.

Quasi Experiments are like a 'mini-experiment' of the actual study to see if the hypothesis and everything is tested and if the experimental design, participant group is working. If you think about a TV series such as Vampire Diaries or American Horror story the first episode of any series is called pilot and this is because this is seeing whether people will be interested in continuing to watch this tv programme so referring back to psychology our quasi ( it is sometimes referred to as pilot ) study is like our Pilot episode of a series of experiments.

Types of Variables

Independent Variable- This is something that the researcher manipulates

Dependent Variable is something that the researcher measures

Confounding Variables are variables which could possibly affect the dependent variables however the experimenter has some control over those  a bit like a lab where there's windows and the weather outside is rain and wind then the participants could be distracted by the events wearing outside however the researcher could if there was blinds in the experimenting room, pull them down.

Extraneous Variables are variables which could possibly affect the DV however the researcher has no control over what happens. For example if researchers where doing a study about participants levels of anxiety created by a historical events such as WW2 through viewing some images of things such as images of concentration camps, some participants may have had relatives that may have been involved in the war directly which could effect the results.

How to make sure that Your Experiment is reliable?

This is often an exam question which looks a bit like ; How can the experimenter make sure research is reliable? This is possible through replication of your study. The way your study can be replicated is if you carry it out in different areas of the city/ country and check whether there is a pattern in the trends. And also through publishing your study and allowing other psychologist to see whether your experiment works. This is made possible by writing a good procedure which is something i will be writing a blog on next.

What is Ecological Validity?

This is a term used by psychologist to explain to what extend the study/experiment/research is true to life. These can be shown by Natural Experiments which are most true to life in comparison to ones such as lab experiments.

Experimental Design

summaries of the three types of  experiments can be found here and im going to talk you through some limitations here. In Repeated measures design the participants may be subjected to Order effects this si because the same participants may go through the same condition more than once the experiments results may be influenced by actions in previous events of the condition. In Independent  Measures design the results may be created by individual differences, for example if you're doing a a study on  memory every one has a different memory capacity to others so therefore some people may be able to remember more so than others. There is also another experimental design called Counter Balancing and this is where you control effects of extraneous variables by making sure you keep all of the variables equal,. Demand Characteristics can occur in any experiment , study observation and this is where the participants think they have identified what the objective of the study is and therefore tried to behave according to what they think may have affected the study.

♥Psychological Investigations| Experiments♥

Experiments

There are three types of main experiments and experimental methods that we learn about in Psych.

I'm going to begin with Field Experiments. These experiments are carried out in the real world so they therefore they have a higher ecological validity in comparison to Laboratory  Experiments. The experimenter still has a degree of control such as being able to manipulate the Independent Variable (IV). However although there is still an element of control this is not as high as the lab experiments and these are also more time consuming than lab experiments. Possible ethical problems or considerations is informed consent, difficult of briefing and the privacy of participants.

Lab Experiments

In lab experiments the researcher has a high level of control over all variables, and they take place in controlled environment using standardised procedures and participants are usually chosen in experimental groups. LE can draw causal conclusions and minimise confounding variables and also due to the procedure are also easy to replicate.However as they are carried out in artificial settings they carry low ecological validity and also investigator and participant effects may occur. One example of participant effects is demand characteristics and this is where participants try to guess the purpose of the study and therefore behave in a way that reflects their idea of the experiment. One Experimenter effect is experimenter bias and this is where the experimenters expectations can affect the results by influencing participants based on the given expectation. Possible ethical problems or considerations relating with lab experiments are, deception informed consent  and psychological harm.

Naturalistic Experiments.

These take place in an everyday life settings and no variables are manipulated by the experimenter however is varied when in happens naturally however dv is still measured, participants may or may not be aware of the participation in the study. Overall this time of experimental method always allows research to take place where iv is not manipulated and allows researcher to study real-life problems, on the other hand causal relationships can not be demonstrated by this type of experiment and there is a lack of control over variables. possible ethical problems and considerations are keeping the confidentiality of participants.

Experimental Design

These are the ways in which participants are grouped together in order to undergo certain experimenter conditions.

Repeated Measures Design- This is where the same group of participants undergo each of the iv

Independent measures design- two or more different groups of participants undergo different iv's

Matched Pairs - this is where participants are chosen upon certain characteristics or traits and put into groups to test the IV. such as of you pick out 3 girls aged 16-24-32 you would have girls the same age in the next group of participants.

For any more help or questions please do not hesitate to get in contact with me :)

♥Core Studies| Social Psychology| Pilliavin et.al. (1969) Subway Samaritan♥

Pillavin carried out a field experiment to investigate helping behaviour towards different type of victims. After the tragic murder of  Kitty Genovese in New York(1964), Social Psychologist became particularly interested in investigating this particular type of behaviour as it is said that around 40 people witnessed or heard Kitty's struggle but not one person helped until 30 mins after the attack when kitty had already passed away.

This is where psychologist tested bystander apathy (the case in which people do not offer help when there's others present) and the situations that made others help rather than not. First type of research method used lab experiments were used were participants were put in scenarios like being in a smoke filled room and the alarm went off they would test to see what type of people would sound off and alarm (Latane and Darley 1968). Piliavin recognised that such experiments lacked ecological validity and there for constructed a field experiment that would investigate real life behaviours in an every day  situation.

Aims and Independent and Dependent Variables
The aim of the study was to investigate factors which affect our helping behaviour the factors picked for this study were:
- Responsibility of the victim
- Race of the victim
- effect of modelling
- effect of the size of the group

The Variables

Independent Variables:
- Type of victim ( drunk or ill)
- The race of the victims( black or white)
- Presence of model ( early or late)
- Number of bystanders( varied naturally)

Dependent Variables:
- Time taken for the next passenger to help
- Total number of passengers who helped
- Gender/race/ Location of every helper
- The time taken for each passenger to offer help after model had assisted

Other measurements taken:
- Movement of passengers out of the critical area
- gender/race/location of passengers in the critical area
- spontaneous comments made by the passenger.

Researchers predicted that the person who was drunk would receive less help than the person in the cane condition, the race of the victim was predicted to affect the rate of helping as the person was more likely to help own race, helping was more likely to happen if a model is present. researchers thought it would be useful to predict behaviour using the conditions under which bystanders would/ wouldn't offer to help using a Heuristic Device which is a framework that can be used to predict behaviour.

Method

Trains A&D of  Eighth Avenue IDN NYC were selected as no stops were made between 59th and
125th street so there was a captive audience for 7.5 mins who became the bystanders after 70 second. Overall 4450 men and women who used the trains between 11.00-15.00 between 14/04/-26/06/1968. 45% were black and the mean number of people per cart was 43, how ever the mean number in the critical area was 8,
4 teams of students were used in this study in each individual group there were two males and females) the victim used was aged between 26-35 dressed in jackets and trousers no ties . 4 models were aged 24-29 wore informal clothes and were dressed identically, all of the confederates boarded the trains on through differnt doors, the females sat down and took the notes whilst the models stood up and the victim stood next to the central pole.

-          If victim received no help model would help to feet and exit the train until other passengers of train leave.6-8 trials were run on the same condition, when model provided assistance raised the victim to a sitting position and stayed with him for a remainder of a trial.

-          Drunk condition: 38 trials the victims smelt of alcohol and carried a brown bag, cane victim: 65 trials appeared sober and carried a black cane, early model stood in the critical area and helped after 70sec late helped after 150 sec

-          Early model/ adjacent model stood in area adjacent to critical area same for late/ adjacent

-          On each trial race, sex and location was noted + everyone in carriage. 2^nd coded race sex and location of every person in adjacent area. Both also recorded spontaneous comments by passengers standing next to them.

Findings and Conclusion

©      Helping were much higher than earlier labatory experiments so not possible to investigate behaviours of models helping as were helped before model on majority of trials

©      Cane victim received help on 62/65 trials whilst drunk received help on 19/38 trials of the spontaneous helpers 90% were male

©      Tendency for the same-race helping was frequent this increased  when victim was drunk compared to ill

©      No strong relationship between the no of bystanders and speed of helping diffusion of responsibility increased when more passengers on board

©      The longer the emergency continued without help being offered:

-          The less impact the model had on helping behaviour

-          The more likely individuals left the immediate area to avoid the situation

-          The more likely it was that observers discussed the incident and its implications

©      More comments on the drunk rather than ill made.

©      Arousal Cost Reward model:

-          Observation of emergency created emotional arousal in bystander this is higher on the level you empathise with the individual, the closer to emergency, longer the emergency without given help. Reduced by helping directly, going to get help, leaving the scene of emergency, rejecting victim as undeserving of help     

Evaluation

©       study can be criticised on ethics: participants can’t give consent, they are being deceived as the situations isn’t real, participants not debriefed and also may suffer with feelings of guilt, distress and anxiety

©       Field experiments more difficult to control due to extraneous variables.

©       High level of ecological validity. On the other hand some participants were very close to victim and couldn’t escape from situation thus unlike situations & maybe one of the reasons why diffusion of responsibility didn’t occur

©       Sample size was very large and fairly representative to population of New York Citizens

©       The ACRM is criticised as takes a –ve view on people assumes behaviour is measured by some sort of cost/benefit altruism refers to unselfish behaviours and  thus ACRM says we never behave altruistically

©       40 years on from murder of Kitty there are still ongoing debates on whether the original documenting is accurate.

♥Core Studies| Social Psychology| Milgram (1963) Obedience

Milgram

-          Milgram initiated his study to test his ‘Germans are different’ hypothesis in order to explain that the Germans have a basic character which makes them more obedient in comparison to any other nationality and would help to explain tyranny (events such as the holocaust.)

The aim of the experiment was to investigate what level of obedience would be shown by participants were told by an authority figure to administer electric shock to another person.

IV- Prods given to participants

DV- Degree of obedience measured through the strength and duration of the shock

Although This Study is often described as an ‘experiment’ there is no control condition so his results can’t be compared to another group. So a better way to describe it would be that he used a controlled observation.

Participants and Method

40 males aged 20-50 years old from New Haven. The participants were self selected and consented to take part in the study of ‘memory and learning’ at Yale University in response to the advertisement that was published in a local paper and the use of direct mail, these males would be paid $4.50 just for attending to the study. This was Milgram’s way of making sure obedience wasn’t going to be affected by the money.

Milgram created a fake- shock generator which consisted of 30 switches in clear 15 volt increments which ranged from 15V-400V. The generator also had buzzers, flashing lights and moving dials and also the generator could give a 45 volt shock which would increase the authenticity of the study as it would appear genuine to the participants taking it especially with the fact that the study was taking place in a smart psychology lab at Yale University.

Experimenter was played by a 31 year old biology teacher who wore a technicians coat and appeared stern and emotionless; he was a confederate (an actor who was in on the study). The learner was played by Mr. Wallace who was mild mannered and likable he was also a confederate. The slips of paper which decided whether the participants were teacher or learner were rigged and both of the slips said teacher on it. The teacher was always one of the chosen participants. Teacher and learner were both taken to the adjacent room and the learner, in the view of the teacher was strapped to the electric chair, this was to prevent excessive movement. An electrode was attached to the learner with electrode paste which was said to avoid blisters and burns. Then in front of the teacher the learner was told that although the shocks might be painful, they cause no permanent tissue damage. To further enhance the authenticity a sample shock of 45V was given to the teacher.

The participants were told to read out a series of word pairs which the learner had to memorise. From the word pairs the participants would read out one of the word from the pairs and four other words of which one was the second word of the pair. If the answer was correct the participants moved on to the next word pair, if the answer was wrong the teacher had to tell the participants the correct answer and the level of punishments (volts). The learners predetermined responses were recorded previously and based on a schedule of 3 wrong answers to one correct. No vocal response was heard after the level of 300 volts and at 315 volts his answers did not appear on the panel. If the participants asked for advice like for example should I continue administering the shocks prods would be given.

Prods

1)      Please continue or please go on

2)      The experiments require that you continue

3)      It is absolutely essential that you continue

4)      You have no choice for you must go on

The prods were given in chronological order so prod 1 would be given and if the teacher asked if they should continue again then prod 2 would be given so on and only if participants asked. However in the participants asked if there was any permanent injury given to the learner then special prods were given.

1)      Although the shocks may be painful, they cause no permanent tissue damage, so please go on

2)      Whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on until he has leaned all the word pairs correctly so please go on

Followed by prods 2, 3 and 4 if necessary.

 The experiment ended either when 450 volts were reached or the participants walked out.

Analysis

-          A participant who broke off  at any point prior to the highest shock level was called a defiant participant  those who continued up to 450 volts was called an obedient participant,

-          The sessions were filmed and notes were taken of the latency of the shock and durations of the shocks were timed.

-          The participants were debriefed using open ended questions to check that no harm was caused using psychometric test via Personality tests.

-          Participants were also reunited with the learner and explained to them that their behaviour was normal.

Findings

40 participants obeyed up to 300 volts, Overall 65% of participants gave shocks of up to 450 volts 35% stopped sometime before 450 volts.

Obedient participants heaved signs of relief or shook their heads in apparent regret.

Many participants heaved signs of nervousness or tension: sweating, trembling, lip biting, groaning, digging fingernails into flesh, nervous laughing fits and uncontrollable seizures were recorded that the experiment had to be halted.

On a separate rating scale participants were asked how painful to the learner were the last few shocks 1 (not painful at all) to 14(extremely painful) the mean was 13.42 which believed that participants though the test was genuine even though it was fake and study actually studied obedience rather than memory and learning (don’t get the two mixed up)

Conclusions
Milgram’s results shocked the researcher as they were not expecting such high levels of obedience (the expectation was only 2% of participants to go up to 450 volts)

Milgram suggested that because the experiment took place at a prestigious Yale University that that lent the study it credibility and respect. Participants thought that the experiment was for a worthy purpose of gaining advanced knowledge to understanding of learning processes and also they believed that the victim also volunteered to be in the study so it was up to them to continue even if the procedure became unpleasant. Also as far as the participants were concerned the roles of teacher and learner had been allocated fairly.

Evaluation

Positive

Negative

Milgram would have not found results that were so true to life if he had not used deception as this allowed people to behave in naturalistic ways. The males that replied could somehow be different from the rest of population which would allow the results to be valid to a certain extent. Psychiatrists examine participants one year after committing the study and found no long term damage. Milgram’s study was cross-culturally replicated and Australia and Italy gained similar results The main strength of Milgram’s study was the control he had over the study. 84% of the participants that were used in a follow up experiment a year later said that they were happy to be a part of the study and also The American Association For The Advancement Of Science awarded Milgram for outstanding contribution of science in 1995.

Milgram’s sample was unrepresentative and gender bias as only American males (which could suggest that Milgram was deliberately  ethno-centric- basing his study on one culture: American Males) were used results could have been different if different cultures or females were used so the study does not reflect general population. Psychological Association of USA investigated Milgram’s research and found it to be ethically unacceptable, this can be shown by the prods that were given which did not allow the participants to withdraw even if that option was made available. Baumrind (1964) argued that none of the participants were screened to see if the study would affect them in a negative way which can be proven by the 1.3% of participants who said they were unhappy to be in the follow up study one year later. Orne (1963) stated that the study clearly lacked ecological validity if procedure was changed to an actual pupil- teacher environment such as a classroom maybe results would be different.

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Hi to you all Psychology friends and people interested in psychology. Everything mentioned in this post if form the AS Psychology OCR Specification for any more information about this course please go to the OCR Website. I hoped that you have enjoyed reading and revising . If you have further questions please don't hesitate to leave comments down below get intouch with me on twitter and facebook.

 Thanks 

♥ Nat

♥Psychological Investigations- Observations♥

Observations

Overall in psychology observations are used quite a lot. There is so many different varieties and procedures as to how you would carry out observations.

Participant Observations

♥ Participant observation can be both Overt and Covert, these are observations made by someone who is also participating in the activity which could affect the objectivity. 

♥ Overt Participant Observation is where participants are aware that you are observing them. This is a positive as it allows the researcher to gain the consent of the participants  and allows the researcher to really understand group traits and cause and effect relationships which produces rich data. However, this can create objectivity which basically mean its very much one sided as researcher is a part of the group they can't just tell us what they see from a perspective that everyone would see.

♥Covert Participant Observation is when the participants aren't aware that you're observing them. This increases reliability and validity as behaviours are more naturalistic. However social desirability may still occur and also participants did not give you their consent to be observed which creates an ethical issue ,

♥Non-Participant Observations are observations made by someone who is not participating in the activity observed. These are a positive as they allow  the observer to be very objective so all observers may get the same results which increases the observer Inter Rater Reliability (this is a way of describing how well independent observers score on the findings and  the extent to which the findings correlate - so in simpler terms how well the researchers have gathered their results and if at all there's any similarities in their findings.) Also you can record these observations which later allow you to pick out anything that you may have missed. Although NPO can be great they cant really establish a cause and effect relationship and you can also miss informations along the way.

Structured and Unstructured Observations

♥ Structured observations are ones where the researchers create a type of coding scheme to record the participants data which can collect quantitative data which is easy to analyse. Coding Schemes are ways of categorising behaviour so that you can code what you observe in order of how often a type of behaviour appears. This  type of information is a easy to carry out however as its categorised it is a restricted view and is not very in-depth so you cant find cause and effect relationships between behaviours.

♥ Unstructured Observations are ones where the researcher records all the behaviour that is observed. This type of observation can be difficult to carry out without the use of recording equipment as it is easy to miss behaviours. This type of data is difficult to analyse however it does provide rich quantitative data.

Sampling Observational Data.

♥Sometimes researchers may use a sampling technique to collect their data as it may be difficult to record everything; these techniques are Event and Time Sampling.

♥Event Sampling is where the observer records any significant behaviour that happens during the observation period, such as ticking a box every time you would see people talk in class when the teachers talking. Although behaviours should not be missed, if there is to many observations happening at once not all behaviours may be recorded.

♥ Time Sampling is where the researchers pick a set time frame in which they would record behaviours seen. This method can be problematic as researchers cant see all the behaviours happening at anyone time, which can be unrepresentative of the group being observed.

As always thank you for reading if there's anything that you would like to know in particular please let me know and do not hesitate to get in touch information is all down below.

                                                       ♥               ♥              ♥            ♥

Hi to you my Psychology Friends or people interested in psychology. Everything mentioned in this post is from the AS Psychology OCR Specification. For any more information about this course please go on to the OCR website and I Hope you enjoyed reading and revising. If you have further questions please do not hesitate to leave a comment down below or get in touch with me on twitter: @MissSweetlyNat or on Facebook: http://facebook.com/MissSweetlyNat or just type in Miss Sweetly Nat in the search bar.

Thanks

Nat♥

♥Psychological Investigations- Self Reports♥

Self- Reports.

What are they and how do we carry them out?

Self-reports are basically pieces of information collected by the researcher through the use of Questionnaires and Interviews. They can be used alone or along side studies that to find out specific information in relation to your topic of subject, 

Questionnaires can vary in the questions you ask, they can be open or closed and can also use things such as a rating scale.

Open Questions:

♥ these questions allow the participant taking the questionnaire to expand and explain the answer they gave to a question.

♥ An example of an open question would be. What is your opinion on Psychological Studies being carried out on humans?

♥A strength of an open question is that the answers are not fixed-choice answers; respondents can write what ever they want.

♥A weakness of Open Questions is that the data is harder to analyse as the data produced is Qualitative rather than Quantitative.

Closed Questions and Rating Scales

♥ these questions are often very fixed and participants usually either tick boxes or use a rating scale.

♥An Example of a Closed Question would be: Would you Consider doing a Psychology Study? Yes / No/ I Don't Know. Put a ring around one of the choices above.

♥ A strength of  closed questions is that the data collected is easy to analyse as the data collected is Quantitative,

♥ A weakness of closed questions is that respondents cant abbreviate on their answer  and also the answer can sometimes be  forced,

♥ An example of a Rating Scale. is a Likert Scale. 

♥ Work Is Successful: strongly agree [] agree [] not sure[] disagree[]  strongly disagree[]

♥ A strength of likert scales is that it allows the researcher  has an idea about how strongly the participant feels about something and therefore gives more detail than a simple yes or no.

♥ a weakness of likert scales is that  the respondents tend to respond towards the middle  to make them look less extreme.

Interviews 

♥ can also use open or closed question and can also be structured or unstructured.

♥structured interviews have pre-set questions that the interviewer asks. This allows the interview to run smoothly and the researcher gets the answers on the topics he or she wants to know the answers to.

♥unstructured/semi-structured interviews. semi structured interviews still use pre-set questions however like unstructured interviews they are more like a formal conversation about the topics you want to find the answers to as well as a more relaxed feel for the interviewee.

So, I'm just going to run through strengthens and weaknesses of questionnaires and interviews.

interviews

♥ provide large amounts of qualitative data - this enables the researcher to participants experiences, Interviews also are more likely to gain an insight of  the participants world  and also interviewers can use body language to confirm verbal responses.

♥however interviews can be hard to carry out and may be influenced by interviewer bias. Also there is difficulty in the way that the data is hard to analyse and also the interviews are very lengthy procedures and participants may still answer untruthfully.

Questionnaires 

♥record participants experiences and response rates can be high if the questionnaires are given back on the spot. questionnaires can also hold a large sample of the target population and contain topics that are difficult to talk about.

♥however often  can be influenced to bias. Questionnaires are also difficult to design well and also response rate can be low if its a postal questionnaire . sometimes the data gathered can be complex and difficult to to interpret and participants may also answer untruthfully,

Finally in any research method you will be looking at weather your research is valid and reliable,

reliability refers to how consistent something is; so for example making sure that all questions on the questionnaire and structured interview are the same for all participants. Validity refers to how accurate something is. so the main problem with validity when carrying out questionnaires is that we cant be certain on weather our participants are telling the truth which makes the results invalid.

P.S , I forgot to mention that Qualitative data is data that is rich in detail and is usually worded rather than numerical data. Quantitative data is data that can be produced into graphs so it is often data that is easily analysed and in the example of self reports usually produced by questionnaires, A good way of remembering these two things is that Qualitative data has Quality and Quantitative data has Quantity,

                                             ♥               ♥              ♥            ♥

Hi to you my Psychology Friends or people interested in psychology. Everything mentioned in this post is from the AS Psychology OCR Specification. For any more information about this course please go on to the OCR website and I Hope you enjoyed reading and revising. If you have further questions please do not hesitate to leave a comment down below or get in touch with me on twiter: @MissSweetlyNat or on Facebook: http://facebook.com/MissSweetlyNat or just type in Miss Sweetly Nat in the search bar.

Thanks

Nat♥